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The Fall from Grace
This historical event marks the beginning of the current year cycle. A.F. signifies After the Fall. The Fall from Grace is a catastrophic event that ended at 0 A.F. and began at a point unknown before hand. It resulted in the death of almost every known god. The world still has not fully recovered from it. Prelude to the Fall The causes of conditions before the fall are murky at best. Stories tell of sprawling golden civilizations on the surface and empires of evil below. The planes were held in balance. Good, Evil, Law, and Chaos all held their own rightful places. It was balance in every way imaginable. Causes of the Fall All that is known is that some great evil emerged from beyond the known planar space. Legends speak of a mad god from the Far Realm, others speak of a plot by the demons, and some speak of the emergence of the Illithids from a hidden underground kingdom. The most popular belief among the scholars of Alduroum is something called The Chaos Scripture. There are fractions of a document that speak of an arcane scribe named Apolis. Working within the magical academies of the long lost city of Huin, he and his colleagues studied magic and how to advance it even further. In Apolis' free time, he studied a spell that could tamper with the fabric of reality. There were spells that could stop time, gather storms, summon monsters, slay beings, and create vast wealth, but there was no spell that could tamper with the nature of reality and history. True enough, wish could do much of this, but the Higher Planes had controls in place to intervene if someone with Wish went a little nuts. Apolis was looking for a spell so powerful, even the Higher Planes, not even the Gods could reverse or alter its effects. After a thousand years of research, Apolis had long ago used the magic of undeath to extend his life, Apolis created the framework for a spell whose names has been lost. The document it was written upon is known as the Chaos Scripture. Legend says that Apolis had tapped into the primordial magics that existed before Law, as an element of existence, had formed to fight chaos. What Apolis had made was a summoning spell for pure, unadulterated elemental Chaos that could only be found in places like the Far Realm, but stronger. No one knows why Apolis actually went through with it. Some have tried to find more of the man to explain. Maybe he hated his life? Maybe the perfect civilization was not so perfect? Maybe he was evil? Maybe he was forced by Demogrgon? Maybe, after a thousand years, he just went a little nutty? Reality Unmade Apolis cast the spell and all of Law was corrupted. Water turned to blood, air turned to granite and then back to air for days, gods died and were reborn a thousand times over. Mortals were torn to shreds by storms of malformation and chaos. The world was unmade and reformed every 4 hours. All planes were one and then all were separate once again. Immortality was made mortal and mortality was made an eternity. All of these accounts are taken from accounts by ancient beings who are now long dead. Even immortal beings who survived often committed suicide mere days after Law was restored. Law is Restored In the few times that the deities of the world could think straight and speak to each other, a decision was made to sacrifice their lives to restore order. Collectively, every god who cared about reality joined together and opened a portal in time and space back to the formation of Law. The influx of primordial law balanced out the rampant chaos plague. However, exposing themselves to such a powerful place in time destroyed every deity present. The world reformed. The separate planes of reality were cut off from each other for another 337 years. The gods were all dead, insane, or locked away in demi-planes still believing that reality was gone. The mortals whos essence was not entirely destroyed awoke to a world that had been shoved back together again after being shattered, melted and reformed countless times during the Fall. Many went mad. Many committed suicide. All despaired. Aftermath The perfect civilization and balance was a memory. Now all the separate peoples of Alduroum had to rebuild. Not remembering how much time had actually passed since the fall (some claimed centuries, others claimed hours), almost all cultures began their calenders from the first day that law had been restored and marked it as 0 A.F. Darkest legend says that the Chaos Scripture still exists. As the paper had become Chaos itself, it was unphased by the Fall. All fear if it should be found again. For there are no more gods to make reality right itself again.